This is my new blue metal watering can. I adore it! Doesn’t it look wonderful there with little droplets on the shiny blueness and silverness?

I was going to write a long and philosophical post. Something about Blue + Metal + Watering + Can = Deep and meaningful. But I have decided that simplicity will be better this time. So let’s just admire the shiny new watering can for what it is. Fun to gently sprinkle the garden with the ‘grey water’. Don’t it make my grey water blue?

By the way, I have a little sponsor-box on Goddess Guidebook this month. Go see if you like!

Take care,
Meg

My Facebook Status this week:

“Survivor, Backyard Apricot Tree” Outwit, Outplay, Outlast.
Rainbow Lorikeets 50, Me Zero.
I’ll bet your birdy stomachs will ache – all the fruit you have pecked to shreds is green, green, green. I’ll be ready for you next year, rainbowy beaky bandits!

Here is a photo of both devastation and hope:

The avifauna desperados peck the apricots leaving a bedraggled mess of seed hanging in shredded flesh, striking just days before the fruit are ripe. I chase them away with a broom like a crazy orchard fanatic (maybe I am one?). The birds return within a short time, of course.

So with all the fruity wreckage, what good can come from this ?

1. This really is the Number 1 reason: I got to meet my back neighbour – I have lived here for 10 years, and we have never before spoken. United against a common beaked enemy we have joined forces. This morning we both were plastic bagging the remaining few apricots on our respective sides of the fence.
2. I am firmly resolved to be better prepared next year. If I ‘prune in June’ like the gardeners rhyme says, then netting will be easier. I don’t even mind if some flowers/fruit are outside the net for the fowl, so long as some remains intact under the cover.
3. Once I acknowledged the initial heartache of the avian taunting and plundering I began to ponder. Could I use my human brain to outwit the fiends? Now the last dozen or so whole fruit are encased in bags. Hope they still ripen without much air.
4. I will utilise this as a clear reminder to take neither the yield nor beauty of this world for granted. The yield can be destroyed by the beauty, and the beauty has no remorse for it is focussed only on survival.

Score update post plastic bag application: Rainbow Lorikeets 70, Me 7. Woohoo! Well I am not exactly gaining on them but have felt quite a catharsis from writing this. Thanks for reading!

See ya,
Meg

PS Upon refelection, Number 5 should probably be: Appreciate the bounty and beauty of nature & accept that which is meant for you. Learn from natures story and struggles. It’s not all about us humans after all!

Rebecca Leigh, the wonderful copywriter who wrote the text for my (Tangerine Meg Art Card shop) site has included my “pleased customer” comments on her updated site. I am chuffed!

Gardening update
Broccoli seedlings: happily settled in,
Strawberry Guava: happy,
Petunias: red (they really do seem to be the strongest colour) and happy, despite or because of being swamped with well-aged horse manure, and
Borage: happy. Hooray, happy not-dead plants!
I have also just installed some Chinese greens and mixed lettuce, some extra chives (we like them so much we need a couple of plants, and while I was at it I put in garlic ones too) and some perennial basil – yummy pesto here we come. I bought too much garlic to use just in cooking, so maybe I can plant some too. The annual basil that nearly died cos I took so long to get it from it’s little seedling pot to the ground and wasn’t too good at watering it either, has plucked up its basily courage and sprouted two new little leaves, so it will live! it will live! I gave Seasol and I believe that may have assisted.

I think my additions to the irrigation line to water everything helps, as well as my lovely washing rinse water. Take that, next years drought! (Hang on we are almost still in this years drought).

Next I am going to re-plant the old vegie patch into a fabulous patch of many kinds of berries. Yummy-doodles! I have just bought raspberry, 3 blueberry (Brigitta, Nellie Kelly and Sunshine Blue – haven’t they got nice names?), thornless youngberry (already know that grows well here) as well as jostaberries (a cross between blackcurrant and the gooseberry). I have again purchased kiwi fruit (1 male, 1 female) which is an act of optimism on my part, as the past 2 or 3 attempts have unfortunately resulted in kiwi fruit death by drought, sigh. The black- and rasp- berries that I already have by the metal fence get a bit cooked in summer, so I will see if I can make them a little more comfortable (and productive). Later I would love to have an understorey of strawberries.

I am busting to make some art. I have a few ideas scribbled onto old envelopes and some saved into a book. Some will be good lino prints, like  “TreeBeard” and others might be good done in Adobe “Illustrator” (ie. on the computer). Mum gave me a vintage cup and saucer, so that might make a good pen and ink drawing with beautiful watercolour colours.

Hope you are as well as well can be,
Meg

This site has had 2008 hits as of right now. Thanks heaps for visiting and reading this.

I have been eating a lot of pistachio nuts lately, Mmm! I decided that binning (to landfill) wasn’t the way to go with all the shells so have been collecting them in an old container. But I still wasn’t sure whether to put them in the bokashi compost or what. I have decided to utilize them as mulch (there are a lot of them), and I have arranged the first batch around my baby mandarin tree trunks.

In other pistachio news I have been reading (I think I mentioned) “Animal, vegetable, miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver (I got it from amazon.com, you can too) which is a year of local food growing and choices etc in the Appalachia region of America. I have been thinking about how to make local choices for food where I live. Last Sunday at the Farmers Market I found a local source of pistachios. They are quite lovely and less travelled!

2008 is also a good number because it also matches the year number – fancy that! The year is coming to a close rapidly. I hope it has been a good one for you.

See you soon,
Be excellent to each other,
Meg

I will plant later when it’s cooler outside, but am excited just to have in the house (purchased from our local Farmers Market) some new dear little vegetable seedlings. I will list them, as they are heirloom (some of them) and interesting:
Money Maker Tall Tomato, Carmello Tall Tomato, punnet of mixed lettuce, Butternut Barbara Pumpkin, Burpless Tasty Green Cucumber, Black Pearl Eggplant (Ahoy!), Zucchini Black Betty (Bambalam) and Zucchini Houdini (not sure where that one has got to), Basil (Cinnamon), Joi Choi Pak Choy and Planters Jumbo Rockmelon. In addition to which last week I purchased “Giant of Stuttgart” climbing bean, Oregon Sugar Pod Pea and Mesclun lettuce Mix seeds, and was given sunflower and Coreopsis seeds.

Here is my phone pic of the goodies:

box o potential

I am going to try a slightly different way of watering the vegies this season. Instead of using just the dripper line (I don’t think the holes are quite frequent enough) I am going to build up some edges of soil to keep the washing water (enriched with bokashi) in areas. And to make sense of that I will plant in groups. I was inspired by a friend who is doing something similar.

Good news the (new, specialised) Almond Tree that almost carked it whilst I was away, is picking up now with the application of TLC (lots of bucketed water), and will be ok.

If you like physical comedy at the theatre, and you can get to Tricicle 20 when they are in your home area, go for it! They guaranteed a laugh every 10 seconds, which they got, and which is a lot in a no-interval 1.5 hour show! It was very well done, it really was FULL of laughs. I guess they had be practising for a long time but it was as if it was done for the first time freshly in front of us. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Have a happy day,
Be great, be you.
Meg

I am chuffed to report that yesterday another pair of fruit trees (not pears) was planted in my garden. The spot had been enriched with bokashi compost 2 and 6 weeks ago. The trees are a medium-late apricot (a Trevatt) and an All-In-One compact (3-3.5m) self-pollinating Almond. Nature obliged us with some lovely rain overnight and today to help water them in. I was surprised how pleased I was to have the new additions!

The existing apricot, plum and peaches are blossoming, but the blustery wind is blowing the petals off a bit. Hope that bees and fruit can manage.

I am hopeful that we will get tons of Youngberries this year, I believe I have pruned at the right stage; the new growth is abundant and vigorous, but I am still waiting to see buds. The grape vine looks happy that Spring is here, too.

Take care of yourselves,
Meg